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Is HB messy?

2K views 31 replies 30 participants last post by  hotmamacita 
#1 ·
I would very much like a homebirth for whenever we have our third. I feel that this is where I should be after much research. My only concern and I feel that this is totally silly but a mental hold up for me is that I am a vomiter during transition, with my second I vomited several times and would sip my homemade recharge drink inbetween until they told me to please stop
I was also within 1/2 an hour of pushing so it was fine but it felt so good. The second time around I knew what to expect and what a release it was to just let it all go (poor nurse who I threw up on
). The midwife wanted to help me change and I said no way, I don't care that I smelled like vomit


Anyway, how do you do this when you're at home? Also how do you deal with all the bodily fluids and not worry about staining your carpet. I am very open to birthing in any position so I don't expect to be on the bed, I may be kneeling or having my dh hold me or maybe even birth in our garden tub (which would be ideal for clean up).

How do you do it?
 
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#3 ·
Well, we had shower curtains on the floor covered with bed sheets (I had my babe in the den). Sweet midwife just rolled up the sheets and put them straight in the washer. She said she prided herself on getting anything out of sheets! Shower curtains got balled up and hauled out. All within the first few hours of birth (which seems like 15 minutes!) Go for it!
 
#4 ·
A bucket for throwing up if you think you will... chux pads are great for messes.

I had a waterbirth so the ONLY mess was dumping the fishy pool and a couple of towels that needing washing afterwards... and the chux pads I laid in the bed "just in case" while sleeping and such.
The other stuff was all the midwife's stuff and she took care of it.
 
#5 ·
Don't mean to rabbit trail but what is your recipe for your "homemade recharge drink?" I have one but not too fond of it....
 
#6 ·
Not a homebirther *yet* But just being a mom, I have learned that good old hydrogen peroxide gets blood out of clothes and (ugh) light colored carpeting. From what I have read here at MDC that H2O2 is a great for getting out birthblood too.
 
#7 ·
We have a nice stack of towels ready, plastic shower curtain and what's really nice are those flannel-backed vinyl tablecloths-- the flannel keeps them from shifting around under you. It can all be thrown in the washing machine.

But honestly it's no messier than having a kid with the flu, usually doesn't last as long as a kid with the flu, and you usually have people around to help clean up (the MW, your mom, whatever) very much unlike when your kid has the flu (and you have to do it all yourself!)
 
#9 ·
We used shower curtains under our sheets. We used really old sheets and just tossed them. I also bought a dozen towels from a beauty supply store for about $5.00 and we tossed those too.

After my last birth, which happened very early in the a.m (around 2:00), I found a piece of the cord under the bed. LOL Guess it got dropped in the clean up and we were all so tired by that time no one noticed. lol

My mw does a great job of getting everything cleaned up while the new mom and baby are enjoying their herb bath.

Clean up is the easy part for mom as she doesn't have to do it!! lol
 
#11 ·
Towels, chux pads are great for keeping the mess contained. Since you know you vomit at the end, just have a bucket close by. I threw up with my 1st towards the end and I was totally unprepared for it. Luckily I spend alot of time in the bathroom when I'm laboring, so it was an easy clean up for my DH. My midwife cleaned everything else up.
 
#13 ·
My DH was privately worried about the same thing. (By privately I mean that I never knew he was worried about the mess until I heard him talking about our first homebirth experience and how relieved/amazed he sounded when he talked about how the midwives made sure that EVERYTHING was cleaned up before they left.) With both my homebirth experiences the midwives did a bang up job of keeping things clean. They followed me with chux pads and had a big stainless steel bowl close by when I started to announce that I felt like throwing up. They were super concerned when I was bleeding a lot after the babe came and I made a giant mess of my sheets. (My bladder was full and preventing my uterus from contracting properly.) The assistant even took them downstairs and put the sheets in the washing machine to soak!

They got nothing on the floor and I used oxyclean and the sheets came clean just fine. Just make sure you have some big plastic trash bags in your birthing supplies so they can make one for dirty laundry and one for trash!
 
#14 ·
The last time I gave birth I made myself a nest of sofa cushions and pillows on the floor, and covered those with a couple of dark thick blankets (the kind that have polyester fill.) If I'd been thinking (I thankfully wasn't in my head
) I would have put down some towels too, but as it was the fluids didn't soak through past the blankets. For third stage we put a towel on the sofa and I half-perched on the edge while waiting to get the urge to push again, going into a squat over a bowl as the placenta came out. Then I went to our recliner, which had several towels on the seat, and every few hours changed the towels. All of it simply went into the washer. I don't think we even used anything special to clean it, I don't think it was long enough for the blood stains to have set in.
 
#15 ·
It's really not too bad. . . I wouldn't let worrying about a mess stop you from HB if that's what you want.

Our midwives cleaned up everything, so by the time my family arrived after the birth, you would not have known that DS was born at home.

I threw up a few times (not just at transition) but b/c I was free to move around as I wanted, I made it to the toilet every time! Ha! Also, I was in and out of the shower the whole time (17 hours) which helped me feel a bit cleaner


Like ppl said, lots of chux and shower curtains, especially if you don't think you'll be birthing in your bed!
 
#16 ·
It's messy, but as a PP said, no more than having a sick toddler. I personally didn't clean up a thing, the midwife, DH and my mom took care of everything. Nothing was stained at all. It was some work for them - lots of laundry, draiing the pool, etc - but nothing they minded at all.
 
#17 ·
I have had three homebirths, actually, the last one ended out being an usexpected uc. Things went so fast that all I had time to do was lay down a flannel-backed table cloth down (flannel side up) and a couple of chux pads on top of the bed (could have just as easily been the floor, couch, furniture, etc.) on top of our white floral quilt. We made it through birth and clean up w/o getting anything on the bed!!! I birthed on that, and a half an hour later, when our mw got there, we had rolled up the table cloth and chux and thrown them in a trash bag. I stood over another table cloth while I cleaned up and dressed, then I tossed it too. Only thing to "clean up" were the clothes I was wearing, the towels for baby and washclothes/towels I used to clean self up. We were nursing and all cleaned up by the time the MW arrived. It is very doable!!
 
#19 ·
Thanks for all the ideas, those are awesome.

It's definitely not an obstruction to *having* a homebirth but I feel free mentally to throw up on someone elses' floor vs mine and I also forgot to mention that with my first and I think with my second noone reminded me to use the bathroom so I ended up peeing a lot with my first and some fecal matter with my second as I birthed.

However being in your home I think I would just make sure that the bathroom was really clean beforehand (something that's hard for me to do during pregnancy....Ok and even when i'm not pregnant
) and I could spend more time laboring backwards on the toilet.

Thanks
 
#20 ·
As many PPs have mentioned, it's really not as messy as you might think, your MWs will have the things necessary to make it less messy and they will also do a lot of the cleanup.

We did manage to get a rather large amount of blood on the carpet as I gave birth rather precipitously on the birthing stool but most of it came out with hydrogen peroxide (and it's a dark carpet so unless you know, you can't tell). I actually look at the carpet fondly now when I remember - it will be very hard to let go of the carpet someday
.
 
#22 ·
I have to say I might have thought it would be messier before having had one. Actually my last birth was by far the least messy. I gave birth in my garden tub. After the baby was born, I started feeling like the placenta was going to come. We drained the water. I birthed the placenta, mw put it in a chux pad lined bowl. We have a shower massage attatchment...well, my DH threw it over the shower glass window (which is next to our tub) and I hosed myself off when leaving. I have to say it was SUPER easy. No big tub to set up or mess to clean up. Everything went down the drain.


Even my first two births (one on my bedroom floor, the other in the bed) we had tons of chux pads all around, so we just bunched them up and threw them out. For all my births, after the first hour or so with baby I got up and took a shower
. I remember all of those memories so fondly
. My husband calls our master bedroom suite "sacred ground"
. I feel the same way!
 
#23 ·
Most likely, your midwives will clean up any and all messes.

I thought it would be very messy but wasn't. Of course, I gave birth in the water. My midwives had everything set up (towels, chux pads, shower curtain, etc) just in case I decided to push "on land". After the birth, they cleaned up, did laundry and dishes, dumped out the birth pool, etc. You would have never known that a birth had just occurred!

During labor, I was walking around the house naked. I had a faint worry that I would lose my mucous plug or simply drip blood on the carpet, but of course, didn't care enough at the time to really do anything about it. My midwife had hydrogen peroxide just in case any blood or mucous plug got onto the carpet. She kept checking for stains to take care of but none ever occurred!

Best of luck!
 
#24 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by phatchristy
I My husband calls our master bedroom suite "sacred ground"
. I feel the same way!
That is really great, great isn't even the right word. I think any place you birth is definitely sacred and it's nice to have it be in your home where it just adds to the sacredness of your home.

Also, nice to know that you birthed in a garden tub. Sounds like our set up here in our house...garden tub and shower next to it. Can I ask, did you birth semi-reclined or what position were you able to be in to actually push the baby out? I'm just wondering if the garden tub would be big enough to crouch in and birth in that position.

thanks
 
#26 ·
Funny story about midwives and messes. At the end of my labor, we were doing everything possible to get my water to break on its own because it seemed that was the only thing left holding the baby in. We went into the living room for a change of scenery and to try some squats. My mw put some chux down on the rug. I hated that old rug and I begged, BEGGED, her to just let my water break all over thr rug so we could finally get rid of it. I was barely coherant, I couldn't even hold my eyes open at this point, but I remember saying, "No, really. We can just roll it up and put it out for the trashman. He comes tomorrow."


She wouldn't hear of it, and said "We midwives pride ourselves on leaving the house in the same condition we find it in." *big sigh* So the rug was spared.

She cleaned everything while DH, the baby and I rested in bed. I couldn't believe all she did, and I told her she didn't charge enough for all the jobs she does. Consider a mom who goes the more traditional OB/hospital path. These are all the people who do the work of one midwife:

OB's receiptionist
OB nurse
OB
Hospital nurse(s)
Post-partum nurse
Lactation consultant
Janitor

So to answer your question, yes. Birth is messy. But your midwife will probably get everything back in order for you while you bask in babyness.
 
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